Margaret (Tansley) Tomlinson 1956-1997

Society of Antiquaries of London, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London
W1J 0BE

MARGARET TOMLINSON, M.A.

Elected 3 May 1956

Born: 1906

Died: 9 October 1997

Margaret Tansley was born c. 1906, the daughter of Sir Arthur Tansley, Professor of Botany in the University of Oxford. Perversely, she was educated at the Perse School in Cambridge and Newnham, from which she graduated in 1927. She studied architecture, married her tutor and had a daughter, Anna. She began her professional career as an investigator and photographer with the National Buildings Record from which she moved to the Victoria County History. Initially, she served part-time as a staff architect for ten years, followed by a full-time appointment. Little work had been done on the V.C.H. during the war and Tomlinson played an active part in the revival and expansion of the project which took place from 1949 onwards. She contributed topographical articles on the East Riding of Yorkshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Essex, Gloucestershire, Leicestershire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire, often in collaboration with A. P. Baggs, F.S.A., who was to succeed her when she retired. Included in Shropshire volume 2 are her articles on Religious Houses and Public Schools and Endowed Grammar Schools. In retirement she wrote the history of her family and died at Dunmow on 9 October 1997 in her nineties.